The right wingers and media will continue to whip up anti foreign fear and combined with the real threats from China, North Korea and now possibly a Russia aiming to return to the USSR days will result in Japan becoming a nuclear armed nation. Maybe they already are. Who knows in this opaque society.

Yeah, no reason for concern until Abe and his cronies change the constitution! Why would Japan keep weapons grade plutonium if they don't intend to develop it? If the Abe government goes through with their intended changes to the constitution I have no doubt this will change and we will see japan developing WMDs in an attempt to keep the Chinese wolves away.

Japan also has plutonium contained in spent nuclear fuel at civil reactor sites and reprocessing plants - totaling 159 tonnes at the end of 2012

We all need to be concerned about plutonium and which countries have it and where and how is it being stored. I have no concerns that Japan would build atomic weapons even if it has the way and means, but I suppose at any time in the future that could change.

This is the first time I've read that the country has 159 tons which is three times the figure I've seen previously, which was 45 tons. 1.5 tons inside the country, and the rest being stored at the Sellafield plant in the UK. The plutonium in France was sold off? I don't know where the figure of 159 tons comes from?

I think maybe, the 159 tons of plutonium must mean the allow that is in the 15,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel?

I would like to know where they are storing the plutonium?

The original reason for plutonium was for fast breeder reactors but that's looking more like a failed program, like the Monju reactor. The current reactors can only be loaded with about a third of nuclear fuel being the MOX type which contains plutonium. MOX fuel is very expensive.

Back in January, there was a symposium in Tokyo which discussed "Japan's massive stockpile of plutonium which casts a huge shadow over nonproliferation efforts."

Japan has nearly 10 tons of plutonium on its own soil alone. That is enough to make 1,500 or so nuclear warheads.

"If other countries perceive a growing Japanese plutonium stockpile as a latent nuclear weapon capability, this will contribute to instability in East Asia, and it will undermine Japan’s international reputation,”

The problem is related to using nuclear energy for power generation, and while it may solve some problems it also creates its own set of major problems, which includes plutonium and the safe storage of spent nuclear fuel. Not to mention the cost and extend of the nuclear disaster which the country is not only trying to deal with, but also live with it for many decades into the future and the next century, and probably long after the uranium deposits have been exhausted.

At the Fukushima NPP, the No3 reactor was the only one loaded with about 30 MOX fuel assemblies. I think the No4 was being loaded with them at the time of 3/11 but remain in the cooling pool. Also I think MOX fuel was being loaded into 5&6 reactors. I think the Genkai rector No3 owned by Kyushu Power Co contains about 1,317 kg of plutonium, the second highest after the Monju reactor with 1,533 kg? Anyway, the explosion inside the No3 Fukushima reactor was massive destroying the building. tEPCO claims it was hydrogen but could be steam from the reactor too. There was a second flash explosion shown in video but I've never read what caused that/

All the plutonium in Japan is under IAEA safeguards,” Amano said, referring to regular nuclear inspections.

What about the radioactive Plutonium let loose by the Fukushima accident??? Where are the IAEA safeguards there??? If Cesium is detected there is a possibility of Radioactive Strontium, Plutonium, Yttrium, Amercium, Uranium, Cobalt, Iridium,Tritium and Palladium also.

Health risk or not? Cesium levels high in hundreds of Fukushima reservoirs

I agree with zichi’s mian point that amount of plutonium Japan possesses is indeed a serious concern for Japanese people in terms of safety and environment integrity as well as the international community. (war and peace)

I would not give too much weight to IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano given his ways to propitiate Iran for the sake of deal.

In the end, tt’s really up to Japan to make the right decision. After all, Japan is only country in the world suffered tremendously because of nuclear weapon, it should have known better.

and what is 159 tons worth on the black market? I wonder if Japan asked China if they could look after it for a while what they would say. There are many ways to use plutonium as a weapon and for these quantities you don't require much of a launch system and more like an drone to sprinkle the crap from the atmosphere. My biggest fear is not Japan, but terrorists going after the stuff or some inside job to make some money or for religious reasons.

It is just totally useless, highly toxic, highly radioactive, very long half life, high grade can make nuke bombs, nobody knows where to store it and will cost billions to manage for the future generations.

According to whistle blowers in the U.S. non-proliferation agency, highly reactive uranium from dismantled U.S. warheads stored in the Fukushima spent-fuel pools readily ignited after the quake knocked out the water pumps. A transport casket of elongated shape resembling a missile was sky-hooked out of a pool by helicopter soon after the tsunami, but the remainder of the weapons-grade stock was too heavy to remove. The series of detonations prevented repair crews from accessing controls of the reactor cores, which eventually melted through the containment chambers and into the subsurface soil.
When the quake and tsunami hit on March 11, only three reactors out of a total six at Fukushima were scheduled to produce electricity yet in actuality five were operational. Since then plant workers disclosed that the supposedly empty Reactor 4 had been refitted with a new steel shroud in secret by GE and that it was fully loaded with new fuel rods. The two extra reactors were running clandestine operations, the likeliest purpose being the enrichment of uranium prior to extraction. By no coincidence, Hitachi Electric and Honeywell are partners in developing a laser-plasma system to extract highly pure plutonium and uranium

Well, if Communist China has right to own Nuclear weapons it owns right and then why not Japan should not own just Plutonium. Japan is not making Plutonium to Nuclear Warheads. If Communist China concern and worry about Japan having Nuclear Weapons and then Communist Chinese leaders should not upset Japanese Government and Japanese peoples.

If Japan has ever possessed Nuclear Weapons and then it will be Communist Chinese Government's fault. If Nuclear Weapons will deter bullying from Communist Chinese Government and then Japanese peoples and Government must think about owning Nuclear Weapons.

Japan has advance technology. Japan has right to develop its own Nuclear Weapon if country sovereignty was in danger of invading by foreign Government.

Communist Chinese Government and S. Korean Government need to move on from past.
Both countries leaders are addicting to using past with Japan for their political gain. If Communist Chinese Government and S. Korean Government do not want to move on from past and then Japanese Government should leave them alone. Japanese Government must ignore and leave the stupid child who does not want to grow up.

Kyodo news agency said that the United States had pressed Japan to give back the nuclear material, which could be used to make up to 50 nuclear bombs. Japan had balked, but finally given in to U.S. demands

"Give them back," said the country to the other country that it nuked twice..

So, not long after Japan makes a government secrecy law, America demands its plutonium back. Any connection?

Can we say the same about Chinese Nuclear stockpile?, They do have nuclear weapons, don't they?

They do. They openly admit it. But for those less trusting of the Japanese government, its a mystery if Japan has nukes. That makes Japan tricky and unpredictable for some, and that can be worse than knowing for sure that a country has nukes.

Eklund wasn't Japanese, though. He was Swedish. Blix and ElBaradei aren't Japanese either. None of them ever saw the issue worth mentioning, and at no point over the last 40+ years has there been suspicion raised about japan's handling, storage or security of the plutonium. By anyone.

But that probably won't matter on JT. The current head is Japanese, and everyone knows you can't trust them. He must be trying to cover for something, right?

According to whistle blowers in the U.S. non-proliferation agency, highly reactive uranium from dismantled U.S. warheads stored in the Fukushima spent-fuel pools readily ignited after the quake knocked out the water pumps. A transport casket of elongated shape resembling a missile was sky-hooked out of a pool by helicopter soon after the tsunami, but the remainder of the weapons-grade stock was too heavy to remove.

Highly reactive uranium? From old warheads? They will not have been generating heat like in a reactor, so why would they be in the spent-fuel pools? Of a Japanese facility to boot? And there was a helicopter with a sky-hook on standby to lift these transport containers in case of a tsunami? But they were not standardised, and only one was light enough to lift - out of a pool that was covered with debris, in a location where most of the eyes of the world were on...

Japan also has plutonium contained in spent nuclear fuel at civil reactor sites and reprocessing plants - totaling 159 tonnes at the end of 2012, according to Japanese data posted on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

I think they were saying 159 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel - of which some was MOX containing Plutonium. They probably could have worded it better.

What about the radioactive Plutonium let loose by the Fukushima accident??? Where are the IAEA safeguards there??? If Cesium is detected there is a possibility of Radioactive Strontium, Plutonium, Yttrium, Amercium, Uranium, Cobalt, Iridium,Tritium and Palladium also.

Health risk or not? Cesium levels high in hundreds of Fukushima reservoirs

Congratulations on ignoring the purpose of the IAEA. Their concern is whether the "civilian" Plutonium is being re-purposed into weapons. The IAEA safeguards prevented the fuel being used at Fukushima from being re-allocated to a weapons plant. Nothing more. They aren't there to comment on the health hazards of a compromised civilian nuclear reactor. This is like criticizing the guy who does the annual inspection of your car for the failure of some railway inspector to notice a cracked rail. It's not the auto inspector's job to check rails, and it's not the IAEA's job to safeguard or comment on radiation leakage from a nuclear reactor. Two completely different job descriptions. I would suspect your rant would be more accurately directed at Japan's NRA.

I think they were saying 159 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel - of which some was MOX containing Plutonium. They probably could have worded it better.

Previously I had read there were about 45 tons of plutonium from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. That was being kept in the UK/France. But last year there was some kind of swap and exchange so that all the 45 tons are at Sellafield UK.

There are suppose to be 1.5 tons here. I have been reading that might be 6 tons. Then there are the 300 kg of weapons grade plutonium.

At the NPP's around the country are about 15,000 of spent nuclear fuel in cooling pools. There may also br about 3,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel at the reprocessing plant in Aomori. I'm guessing that would make the 159 tons if it was reprocessed?

Japan also has plutonium contained in spent nuclear fuel at civil reactor and reprocessing sites - totaling 159 metric tons (175 tons) at the end of 2012, according to Japanese data posted on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).